I was in Jr High School. I got bullied by a 9th grader. I signed up for Tae Kwon Do. Sounds familiar? Well it was for me. I was fortunate enough to take classes by Hee Il Cho, one of the original masters of the art and won many trophies in tournaments. I made it to brown belt and taught many classes with another karate school, till I took up wrestling. Why is this important? It's very simple. Many people aren't sure of themselves and are afraid to walk the streets and night and end up taking up karate or judo in hopes of learning how to defend themselves. These days you see a lot of kids at the YMCA running around with white gis and colored belts and yes, they start young these days. The most important thing about karate is the "kia" or the noise you make when you stun your opponent. This is enough to scare most people away, and maybe it's hard to make friends that way, no seriously. Discipline is important and as you know Take Kwon Do is a good form of exercise like any other form of sport. The thing that I found most important is that it gives you confidence. If someone way to accost me in a dark alley these days, the first thing I would do is show him my wallet, then kick his but. There is one thing that no one talks about and it is this. In Tae Kwon Do, they use a lot of kicking techniques. Eventually you may have trouble walking a straight line, just as a gymnast may have or a wrestler may have, and the other thing is breaking boards. I don't recommend this to anyone although I have done it on many occasions and it is easy to damage your hand or your elbows from the splinters. What Bruce Lee did in the 70's was to bring the art to the masses, and many recognized it to be cool or whatever. There are many martial art school these days, in many different styles and I forsee it becoming an acceptable sport in the future, perhaps in the Olympics or such as wrestling and gymnastics have become. Which reminds me of a story. This guy walks into a bakery and goes crazy with all the new bread in the place, trying to stuff it all into a brown paper bag. The owner quietly walks up to him and says, "Hey take one dough!" |
